rney of life. We are
all of us more or less unwilling to be brought into the world. And we
are all of us right."

Mr. Candy's assistant had produced too strong an impression on me to
be immediately dismissed from my thoughts. I passed over the last
unanswerable utterance of the Betteredge philosophy; and returned to the
subject of the man with the piebald hair.

"What is his name?" I asked.

"As ugly a name as need be," Betteredge answered gruffly. "Ezra
Jennings."

CHAPTER V

Having told me the name of Mr. Candy's assistant, Betteredge appeared to
think that we had wasted enough of our time on an insignificant subject.
He resumed the perusal of Rosanna Spearman's letter.

On my side, I sat at the window, waiting until he had done. Little
by little, the impression produced on me by Ezra Jennings--it seemed
perfectly unaccountable, in such a situation as mine, that any human
being should have produced an impression on me at all!--faded from my
mind. My thoughts flowed back into their former channel. Once more, I
forced myself to look my own incredible position resolutely in the face.
Once more, I reviewed in my own mind the course which I had at last
summoned composure enough to plan out for the future.

To go back to London that day; to put the whole case before Mr. Bruff;
and, last and most important, to obtain (no matter by what means or at
what sacrifice) a personal interview with Rachel--this was my plan of
action, so far as I was capable of forming it at the time. There was
more than an hour still to spare before the train started. And there was
the bare chance that Betteredge might discover something in the unread
portion of Rosanna Spearman's letter, which it might be useful for me
to know before I left the house in which the Diamond had been lost. For
that chance I was now waiting.

The letter ended in these terms:

"You have no need to be angry, Mr. Franklin, even if I did feel some
little triumph at knowing that I held all your prospects in life in
my own hands. Anxieties and fears soon came back to me. With the view
Sergeant Cuff took of the loss of the Diamond, he would be sure to
end in examining our linen and our dresses. There was no place in my
room--there was no place in the house--which I could feel satisfied
would be safe from him. How to hide the nightgown so that not even the
Sergeant could find it? and how to do that without losing one moment
of precious time?--these were not easy